Your bio in Dhampir says you've written together before, though Dhampir was your first-novel length collab.  In what ways was the writing of a novel different?

Barb:  Really, the process for collaborating on short fiction is not too different except that I think we put less initial planning into the project. 

JC:      I think most writers work from some type of outline when writing larger works.  And in some ways, we had to expand on that concept as well. 

Barb: We did a fun short story called "De Chirco's Pests" for the hardback anthology Rat Tales, edited by Jon Gustafson and published by Pulphouse in Oregon.  Every story was to start with the same line: "There were rats in the soufflé again."  Hah!  But we just tossed the initial idea around and then started writing.

JC:      And we talk a lot.  Not just in developing the book outlines, plot and world in which we write, but also about the characters. We’ll even gossip about them behind their backs.

What drew you to writing?

JC:       Hmm… hard to say after so many years.  We started looking at it with short stories only a few years after we were married, so it’s been about 15 years now.  As we were and are both enthusiasts for the speculative genres in general, I think we simply have dreams and visions we simply wanted to share.

Barb:   I've had people running around inside my head (acting out scenes) since I was five years old.  I decided it was time to start writing them down.

What is the collaborative process like for you?  How do you divide the work?

JC:      This is the question we get asked most often, I suppose because collaborative spouses are more rare than any other types of collaborators.  And it’s not a static thing where we really have a certain way of doing it.  But we each have a different focus, which is probably influenced by our particular emphases in college, even though we took about 2/3s of our courses together. My emphasis for my MA in English was creative writing, with some work in editing, publishing, and electronic publishing.

Barb:  Our collaborative process is actually changing.  I have a master's degree in composition theory, so everyone’s writing “process” fascinates me.  J.C. is traditionally what's called a "perfect drafter," which means he'll labor over a sentence or a paragraph or even a chapter until it's perfect, and of course it's never perfect, so writing has sometimes been painful for him.  He’s glowering at me now. I'm what's a called a "binge writer"…

JC:      Which means she’s a pain for anyone who interferes with her “binging.”

Barb:  Oh be quiet. I’m writing here.  As I was saying…  We both teach college, and I tend to wait until I'm between semesters, and then just start getting up at 6:00 a.m., making coffee, and writing all day and sometimes into the evening.  Seriously, sometimes J.C. will have to growl at me to take a shower and "eat something" at 2:00 in the afternoon when I'm like this.  But we also wrote the last 500 pages of book two, Thief of Lives, in four and a half weeks this way. 

JC:     Fortunately, things have changed over time, and our processes lean a little more towards each other’s over time, sans our individual bad habits.

Barb:  Our typical process is to create an outline together.  J.C. and I get along really well, and this is probably the only time where we might argue over plot points.  But we create a 25 to 30 page single-spaced, chapter-by-chapter outline before we ever start writing. 

JC:      And we break it down by scene and p.o.v. as well.  We also keep word processor files, spreadsheets, and databases filled with history, culture, religion, languages, politics, etc., related to our world, as well as character details and sketches to help both of us stay in sync. 

Barb:  Now, we have been known to change plot points along the way, so nothing is set in stone.  I do the majority of the drafting because I write so much faster, and then he comes behind me and revises and expands.  We both go over everything two or three more times before we even consider the first draft "ready," and by the time we've done this, even people who know us well can't tell "who wrote what."  

JC:      Most of the time they can’t tell, unless the reader knows us really well.  Our daughter, Jaclyn can sometimes spot us individual inside a scene, dialogue, or character moment.

Barb:   But in the end, the final product is an absolute collaboration.

JC:     These days, we still work up an extensive narrative outline, but I’m involved more in the drafting now and Barb more in the first level of revision and expansion.  Someday, we may not be able to tell who is really doing what more than other.

Do you think it's easier to write with someone, or write solo?

Barb:   I'm not sure which one is easier, but it's more fun to write together.

JC:      If I can do something I’ve always wanted to do and do it with Barb, easier or harder becomes instantly irrelevant. For us, it’s just a lot more like the rest of our life.  We’ve always done most everything together, and writing is now one more thing on a long list.

Barb:  We've both learned to leave our egos completely out of this (although this was more an issue for JC)…

JC:      Hey! Well… she’s right.  You have to leave the ego on the front porch, if you expect collaboration to get anywhere.

Barb:  And so we just share the process.  We're lucky in the fact that we have compatible strengths and weaknesses, so together, we make a good team.  Also, when sales on Dhampir began doing well, and we learned the book had gone back for a third printing within two months of release, it was great to have someone else to be excited with.

JC:     Yeah… it’s like living with a female Tigger out of Winnie the Pooh… all that bouncing and hopping around.  Seriously.

When it comes to world building, what do you begin with?  Is it character, setting, plot, theme, or a combination?

Barb:  Character is most important to me because the characters create the plot and the theme.  I think J.C. is much more into "setting" than I am, which is why I leave the "map making" up to him.

JC:      I’d agree in general, but for our particular world, in the beginning I’d have to say it was a concept.  Barb brought to my attention the fact that dhampirs, as charlatans, actually did exist in eastern European folk history.  From there it was easy to think of the twist – what if such a person had to face the fact that he or she was indeed a real dhampir.  And so the story was born, and naturally there had to be other people involved, and naturally we decided to very lightly mimic medieval and post-medieval eastern Europe, but not so heavy handedly that it stands out.

Knowing that you were starting a series, did that bring any unique challenges to the writing of this first novel, Dhampir?

Barb:  Actually, when we wrote Dhampir, we didn't realize that ROC was going to opt for a sequel as well.  Originally, it was a stand-alone novel. 

JC:      Sort of… We had hoped that it could be a series, that it would be bought and then worked into a series, but we weren’t certain at the time we wrote it

Barb:   J.C. was working full time in as a partner in an IT firm when the book actually sold, and then his company closed down, and we were looking at a major shift of life. 

JC:      And when Jennifer Heddle, our editor, contacted us concerning Dhampir, we learned that ROC also wished to contract for and additional untitled to-be-written sequel.

Barb:  Then we started talking about some "larger world" ideas that we'd been kicking around for a long time.  We couldn't incorporate them fully into Dhampir - because that novel was already sold - but in our final revision, we planted some seeds, and readers are going to see the world getting a little bigger with each sequel.  Magiere and Leesil and Chap are such wonderful characters to write about, that we look forward to discovering their next adventures as much as the readers will.

What is the best piece of writing advice you've received?

Barb:   Oh, this is tough.  I think it would have to be, "Write the kind book you'd like to read."  I know that may be cliché, but I think it's true.

JC:      I’d have to differ on that one a little, probably because the best advice I can think of is some that I didn’t listen to myself for a long time – “Write the kind of book someone else would like to read.”  In the end, it is all about the reader, not the writer.  Remember that ego one leaves on the front porch? If you’re writing for anyone else, then you’re wasting your time - and the reader’s time. 

             I’ve met a lot of writers who write for their peers in seeking validation and accolades, which actually means they are writing for themselves.  Write something that someone - who isn’t a writer, who isn’t interested in the craft – is going to want to spend their time and hard earned money to read, and feel validated themselves in the expenditure. 

What inspires creativity?  What kills it?

JC:      Yikes, and away… as I flee to the darkest corner of the room!  Well, I have to say sitting down to contemplate the nature of creativity can really kill it for me, so I only do it when I don’t need to be creative.  And especially not when I’m struggling to be creative.  Sorry, but it had to be said.  I’m not a big one into fostering creativity as much as dealing with how life just gets so busy you don’t really have time to be creative.  You’re preoccupied, sometimes in being a creative problem-solver in your everyday life, but not enough in just being creative unto itself.  So, I’d suggest taking some time to just lounge and daydream.  Then the hard part comes – taking the ideas that come to you and expressing them through the medium of choice.

Barb:   I don't know.  I think there are so many forms of creativity that this is difficult to answer.  My sister designs glass beads and creates jewelry.  Her work just amazes me.  J.C. also paints intense pictures, often in black and white, though not in recent years.  I think cooking can be extremely creative.  As far as writing goes, I just have a lot of people running around inside my head waiting to be written, and I don't think they will ever go away.

JC:     Everyone is actually and naturally creative, working with his or her own inspirations.  You don’t really have to work at being creative, as you already are.  In everyday life, we all play the “what if” game in solving problems, making choices, looking for possibilities.  The difference for a writer, or anyone working in any expressive medium, is to “communicate” the answer to the question “what if.” And to have that communication succeed, which means focusing on the recipient, which in the case of writer is always the reader and no one else.

As authors, did you have any input when it came to the cover art for Dhampir? 

JC:     No, none.  And most authors do not contribute to the “packaging” of the product.  That is handled by the publisher’s marketing department in conjunction with the editor sometimes. 

Barb:  And at first, J.C. and I were a little surprised by the representation of the characters, especially Leesil, who does not spend half his life working out in a gym.  I love the cover of Dhampir now.  The artist's name is Koveck, a very talented individual.

JC:     Indeed, packaging is what gets the prospective reader to pick up the book in the first place.  And artists deserve a lot of the credit for that first crucial step to the sale of book.

What authors did you read as kids; what authors do you read now?

Barb:  Hah!  J.C. hates this question.  I grew up on Jack London - any Jack London I could get my hands on.  I also loved Roald Dahl, and I wore out my copy of James and the Giant Peach.  I loved Watership Down.  I loved the Dune series.  Actually...I still love the Dune series.

JC:     Well, actually I only have a problem with the second half of this question.  In my younger days, Andre Norton, and Tanith Lee, whose novel version of Kill the Dead was a favorite of mine.  Tolkien of course, though now I would prefer William Horwood’s Duncton Wood.  Gene Wolfe’s Shadow of the Torturer would be high on my list.  And a little-known pulp era writer named Cordwainer Smith.  Though not the greatest writer, he had an imagination that still inspires me.  My favorite short story of all time was and still is from his work, “The game of Rat and Dragon.”  Taken in context for the time and place in which Cordwainer lived, he filled his work with social commentary and vision not only from his present, but from the past and future as he saw it in the “what if.” From the classics I also prefer Moliere and Voltaire.

Barb:   Lately, I've been reading a lot of historical murder mysteries by writers like Anne Perry.  I'm not sure why.  I think Anne's Rice's The Witching Hour was an astonishing accomplishment, and I read that at least once a year.  I also read a lot of Margaret Atwood.  I never get tired of Mark Twain either.

JC:     Lately… hmmm.  Lately I don’t read fiction.  Haven’t found anything that held my attention long enough in comparison to non-fiction of choice.  Most of my reading is in studying taijiquan and a bit on other Chinese internal martial arts, and reading up on contemporary magical practice paradigms. Not the cookbook stuff you find on the shelves most places, but works that look at how magic might actually work and how it happens behind the scenes of the recipes that most people think are the corner stones of real world magic.  I particularly like the works of Neville Drury on shamanism and magical practice in general, and Phil Hine’s works on Chaos/Chaote magic, plus any other works focusing on sigilism.

What appeals to you about speculative fiction (horror/fantasy)?

JC:     Ours book(s) are classified sometimes as dark fantasy, but essentially we put the fantasy first and just season it with darkness, as well as a lot of other spices. We don’t write Horror, at least not anymore.  And we like the openness of Fantasy; not in that it allows you to do anything as much as it challenges the writer to successfully justify the something they put in that contradicts our own reality. 

Barb:  Some of the joy of reading should be about "escapism," and fantasy offers wonderful escapism.  My favorite writer in this vein is Michael Moorcock.  Oh, and Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game.  I read that about once a year too.  I love writers who can make me forget I'm sitting in a chair reading words.

JC:     Yeah, fantasy is the prime realm of daydreams and nightmares and places to go and people to see and things to do that are potentially beyond our reach in our own lives.  Fantasy, among the speculative genres, is “what if” opened to its widest potential.  Still, we do lean on conventions of High Fantasy in our work as a preferred subgenre.

Where do you see the speculative fiction genre going in the next few years?

JC:     I have no idea, though the film adaptations of Tolkien’s work will certainly drive the High and Epic Fantasy subgenres to the forefront of the market for a while.

Barb: I'm always clueless about the business, but one trend I have seen is more "crossovers."  I mean that it used to be tougher to sell things like "high fantasy/murder mysteries." 

JC:      Now there’s a little hint for Thief of Lives next January.

Barb:  Shush!  You’re going to spoil it for them.  Now…  Crossovers or genre-benders have happened before, but it was rare because it confused the marketing departments… 

JC:      And the retailers…

Barb:  I think these crossover type novels are becoming more popular. And part of the appeal of Dhampir is that we've taken an accepted "horror" icon - the vampire -and placed it in a gothic but high fantasy setting.

Dhampir is out in mass-market paperback now.  What can readers look forward to from you two next?

Barb: For now, more books about Magiere, Leesil, and Chap. We're hoping to develop more interesting "undeads" in the world, and just to keep making the world bigger and the stakes higher.  Book two, Thief of Lives (January 2004), is an important vehicle to develop Leesil's character, so he takes center stage a bit in this coming novel.

JC:      And there will be more revelations about Magiere and Chap as well… not to mention some reappearances of other characters from Dhampir. And we’re currently working on a third book, Sister of the Dead [working title], while we wait for rewrite notes from our editor on ToF.  SotD will turn slightly back towards Magiere.  Each book will also have just a touch of something different in its make-up.  Dhampir was an “awakening” tale in some ways.  Thief of Lives will have some of that as well, but also a dash of “amateur detective” and “ill-fated romance”…

Barb:   You’re doing it again…

JC:     Well, we’ve already heard quite a number of reader queries about this, so I might as well just let that little mouse out of the bag.  What we have planned for book three, Sister of the Dead, will lean a bit towards “gothic mystery” with some intrigue and suspense.  All in all, lots of surprises and expectations fulfilled in the storyline, and some entertaining small changes in the angle each book will take.

Thank you, J.C. and Barb! For more information about the writers and their books, visit their website, NobleDead.com.